10 Great Action Video Game Franchises (That Died Too Soon)

TimeSplitters is a wacky, time travelling shooter and became an instant favourite during its initial release in 2000. In a nutshell, the game’s story mode takes place over a span of 100 years with locations between 1935 and 2035. You play as a whole host of eccentric stereotypical caricatures as you’re tasked with travelling across time to retrieve valuable objects in order to save time, and stop the plans of the alien race known as the TimeSplitters.

Aside from a fun story mode, TimeSplitters is most memorable for its co-op multiplayer which includes standard Deathmatch modes and Capture the Bag. The series proved to be highly popular with a TimeSplitters 2 being released in 2002. A third game, TimeSplitters: Future Perfect was released in 2005. Ironically, TimeSplitters itself has become lost in time with no new installment being developed since. A fourth game was reportedly in the works in 2007, but over the years it slowly faded away and was ultimately cancelled.

This has not stopped gamers from loving the franchise, as in 2012 a group of fans banded together to work on an independent successor to the series titled TimeSplitters: Rewind, a PC exclusive paying homage to the original trilogy. As of 2020, this game is reportedly still in development. However, it’s time for the TimeSplitters to return to consoles. With the huge popularity of online PvP, and the desire for cross-play, this series would almost certainly find a welcome home among fans, new and old.